The Red Rose shooting begs a familiar question: Was there a hate crime in York County?

“Absolutely,” two lawyers said.

James Saylor, a 24-year-old letter carrier from Lower Windsor Township, is charged with one count of criminal homicide after police say he shot and killed Chad Merrill, a 25-year-old mason and new dad. The shooting happened early Saturday morning outside the Red Rose Restaurant & Lounge in Hellam Township shortly after Merrill defended a black man against Saylor’s racial slurs, including the n-word, according to police.

There’s no question it was hate, according to some lawyers and social justice advocates following the case, but whether ethnic intimidation should be added to the charges is debatable.

“Absolutely it’s hate, but murder is murder. You can’t go any higher than murder,” said Tom Kelley, a York defense attorney, former prosecutor and former county judge.

Tacking on a hate crime to this most serious charge wouldn’t make sense, he said.

James Saylor, 24, of the 1700 block of Winters Road in Lower Windsor Township, is charged with one count of criminal homicide after police say he fatally shot Chad Merrill, 25, at Red Rose Restaurant & Lounge in Hellam Township July 21.(Photo: York County Sheriff's Office)

“You can’t teach people to not hate, but you can punish them for it,” he said.

The details of the Red Rose shooting case show appropriate intent for a first-degree murder charge, Kelly said.

“You can see it’s a first-degree murder charge or you’re nuts,” he said. “You just can’t get any higher than murder in the first degree. It’s tough to defend that charge.”

Sandra Thompson, a lawyer and NAACP chapter president in York, sees it a little differently.

She also said it's "absolutely" a hate crime because the "whole issue stemmed over hate."

Merrill was "killed because he was protecting a man being harassed based on race," Thompson said.

A person who is defending a protected class is also protected, according to Pennsylvania's hate crime statute.

And she said a hate crime charge needs to be added on to discourage hate and encourage people to speak up when they see wrongdoing.

Thompson spoke up on April 21 after she and four other black women were asked to leave Grandview Golf Club for alleged slow play. Former county commissioner Steve Chronister, working in an advisory role at the course, called 911 twice that day and said the only weapon there was her mouth. That case is being analyzed by the Pennsylvania Human Relations Council to determine whether the women face gender and race discrimination that day.

The Grandview incident, the Red Rose shooting, hate incidents at York Tech and more indicate the county needs to discuss where it stands 50 years after the 1968 and 1969 race riots, Thompson said.

Chad Merrill, right, is pictured with his brother Richard at Chad's high school graduation. Chad Merrill was killed July 21 in a shooting outside Red Rose Restaurant and Lounge in Hellam Township. Submitted

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"A lot of progress has been made, but there's much to be done," she said.

Chad Dion Lassiter, the executive director of the state Human Relations Commission, agreed there's work to be done.

"I don't know if (the Red Rose shooting) is considered a hate crime, but it is alarming that York County is once again in the spotlight," he said. "We have to deal with the elephant in the room that racial animus exists in York."

He was careful to add that it doesn't mean York is a bad place.

"Saying York has its challenges doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its strengths," Lassiter said.

It doesn't mean York County is worse than any other county in Pennsylvania.

"Hate doesn’t have a location. Hate doesn't have a ZIP code," Lassiter said. "What speaks to me though is we need to address these things."

There are pockets of hate in American democracy, and organizations such as the state Human Rights Commission need to "address the intolerance."

When asked if the commission would launch an investigation into the Red Rose shooting, Lassiter said he wasn't "at liberty to say right now. This incident is something the PHRC will spend time looking at to see if there's any role we can play, if any."

This isn't a time for pause, he said. It's time to move full-speed ahead.

"This is really tragic. Chad Merrill was doing more than sticking up for a black man," Lassiter said. "His family said he would do it for anyone, whether white or black. He would do it for any human being. That's important."

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Jessica Godden talks about Chad Merrill, the father of her son Layton, and what she will tell him about his father who was killed defending friend.
Paul Kuehnel, pkuehnel@ydr.com

Merrill has been called a "hero," but Lassiter sees him as more than that.

"I think hero minimizes it," he said. "I see him as a social change agent. For me, as a person engaged in civil rights, he died a very noble death."

But Merrill shouldn't have died, according to Nancy Baron-Baer, the Anti-Defamation League regional director for eastern Pennsylvania, which includes York County.

"An individual condemning hate speech should not have that be a death sentence," she said.

She hopes the Red Rose shooting won't deter people from standing up to bigotry.

"We're not suggesting anyone put themselves in harm's way, but we hope many more good people stand up, instead of one," Baron-Baer said.

More people speaking up for what's right might make all the difference she said.

"While it will be up to law enforcement as to whether this is classified as a hate crime in Pennsylvania," Baron-Baer said, "there is no question this was a hateful, violent and despicable act that everyone in Pennsylvania should condemn."